Unlovely

Gr 9 Up—Harley Jamison has returned to his island home after his first year of university, not expecting to feel as much of a stranger as he does. His former girlfriend Máirín (with whom it was assumed Harley would spend the rest of his life) has a new guy, is pregnant, and doesn't seem happy. In an attempt to convince himself that he's over her, Harley becomes involved with a student from the dance school nearby. Having grown up in the town, he's well aware that the residents view the dancers with a hostile suspicion, mostly due to the death of a local boy who was killed in a fall from one of the school's upper-story windows, but Cassandra is charming and very beautiful. When Cassandra is cast in the lead role of Giselle, she changes, becoming unpredictable and eerily mimicking the behavior of the ballet's doomed heroine. Scenes in which she lures Harley to the school's grounds late at night have an aura of dangerous unreality, but rather than being drawn into the suspense, readers are merely observers. An additional purchase for librarians looking to beef up their YA thriller collections.—Marlyn Beebe, Long Beach Public Library, Los Alamitos, CA